"Regional factors are important for the economy and employment in highly competitive, international markets. As a precondition for the functioning of regional labour markets, adequate information has to be generated and transformed into new knowledge. Regional Labour Market Monitoring can be seen as... view more

"Regional factors are important for the economy and employment in highly competitive, international markets. As a precondition for the functioning of regional labour markets, adequate information has to be generated and transformed into new knowledge. Regional Labour Market Monitoring can be seen as an approach to meet these requirements. A variety of projects in this area have been implemented in several European countries. Their common purpose is to develop and adopt sets of indicators to measure the current regional labour market and to provide information over its development into the future. Both the regional labour force and business enjoy the benefits from this activity. This anthology gives an idea of the diversity of European approaches to monitoring of regional labour markets. It illustrates the different concepts and instruments representing the region in which they are used. These concepts and instruments are related to approaches which are used in other European regions in similar ways but with different stress or modified methods. The composition of the book is divided into three sections: (i) The first part contains various examples of projects in the field of Regional Labour Market Monitoring. It includes two chapters, whereas in one chapter projects of a nationwide monitoring and in the next chapter samples for regional approaches are presented. (ii) The second part of the book points out some topics which are relevant for the further development of Regional Labour Market Monitoring, and (iii) the third part is related to what meaning networks have for the development of Regional Labour Market Monitoring. The book is concluded with some future perspectives. In order to advance Regional Labour Market Monitoring in Europe, the editors argue there needs to be more academic input and reflection on this concept. Apart from the interest in conceptual topics in connection with European monitoring projects, there is a clear need, articulated by the actors in the projects, for more exchange and systematic networking." (author's abstract)... view less